The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2020 released last week by Transparency International reveals that the Maldives climbed 14 points since last year.
The CPI annually scores and ranks countries and territories by their perceived level of public sector corruption, drawing on surveys and expert assessments. The index uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. The CPI is calculated using a composite assessment consisting of a minimum of three separate sources.
The Maldives, with a score of 43, is ranked 75 out of 180 countries in the CPI 2020. Compared with the 2019 index, the Maldives has climbed 14 points in the score and 55 positions in country ranking. The Maldives’ 2020 score was drawn from three international sources: Global Insight Country Risk Ratings, Varieties of Democracy Project, and World Bank CPIA. The data for all three sources were collected in the period from January 2019 to January 2020.
While the upward trajectory in the CPI index is a positive step, Maldives still remains among the two-thirds of countries to score below 50. Despite the progress, the Maldives has made in the recent past especially in the area of strengthening the legal framework the data shows that the Maldives is still falling behind when it comes to effectively tackling corruption.
As the Maldives seeks to move towards adapting to the new normal and embark on recovering from the pandemic, it is imperative to look back on how the Maldives as a country is responding to the pandemic. An important takeaway from this year’s CPI is that while corruption differs in scale and scope across regions, it proved to be a universal obstacle to effectively combating the pandemic. COVID-19 is not just a health and economic crisis, but a corruption crisis too.
Featured photo via Transparency International
Full details are available at the link below:
